Post by High Priestess on Dec 7, 2016 15:36:30 GMT
See the article here:
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-06/airbnb-inches-its-way-into-china
Whereas Uber rushed in, Airbnb has taken its time in building relationships with China’s industry leaders and government officials. A 2014 partnership with Alibaba made it easy for Chinese users to pay for Airbnb rentals with Alipay, the local equivalent of PayPal. A partnership deal with Tencent, finalized in February, got Airbnb built into WeChat, China’s dominant messaging app. This year, Airbnb has teamed up with the governments of four major Chinese cities, including Shanghai and tech hub Shenzhen, for ambiguous tourism promotions that, among other things, mean the service is welcome in those hot spots.
And on Wednesday, Airbnb began storing the data relevant to its China operations on servers in-country, meaning officials can access them, an early move to comply with a national law due to take effect next summer. “Our strategy is to work closely with regulators and build through on-the-ground partners,” says Airbnb Chief Financial Officer Laurence Tosi, who’s spending most of his time leading the company’s nascent China subsidiary. Airbnb says it’s just trying to work within the letter of the coming law and notes that data not pertaining to Chinese bookings will remain off-limits to the government.
Listings totals don’t provide the whole picture. At any given moment, only about 1 percent of Tujia’s listings are occupied, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg. That may help explain why the quarter ending in June, the best three-month performance Tujia has reported, produced less than $2 million in revenue, according to the documents. Tujia President Zhuang Hai says revenue numbers are misleading and that volume is most important. Its volume, the value of transactions through the site, was $22 million during that same quarter, the documents said. “Whoever controls the traffic and has the most transactions will win the upper hand,” he says.
While Airbnb declined to provide its occupancy rates, people close to the company say it floats between 8 percent and 12 percent in China, compared with an average city-by-city rate of 12 percent to 18 percent in the States. Zhuang says Tujia’s advantage lies partly in its wider range of services, such as helping property owners clean and manage their rentals. But he acknowledges that Airbnb is a strong competitor in several of China’s major cities, including Beijing.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-06/airbnb-inches-its-way-into-china
Whereas Uber rushed in, Airbnb has taken its time in building relationships with China’s industry leaders and government officials. A 2014 partnership with Alibaba made it easy for Chinese users to pay for Airbnb rentals with Alipay, the local equivalent of PayPal. A partnership deal with Tencent, finalized in February, got Airbnb built into WeChat, China’s dominant messaging app. This year, Airbnb has teamed up with the governments of four major Chinese cities, including Shanghai and tech hub Shenzhen, for ambiguous tourism promotions that, among other things, mean the service is welcome in those hot spots.
And on Wednesday, Airbnb began storing the data relevant to its China operations on servers in-country, meaning officials can access them, an early move to comply with a national law due to take effect next summer. “Our strategy is to work closely with regulators and build through on-the-ground partners,” says Airbnb Chief Financial Officer Laurence Tosi, who’s spending most of his time leading the company’s nascent China subsidiary. Airbnb says it’s just trying to work within the letter of the coming law and notes that data not pertaining to Chinese bookings will remain off-limits to the government.
Listings totals don’t provide the whole picture. At any given moment, only about 1 percent of Tujia’s listings are occupied, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg. That may help explain why the quarter ending in June, the best three-month performance Tujia has reported, produced less than $2 million in revenue, according to the documents. Tujia President Zhuang Hai says revenue numbers are misleading and that volume is most important. Its volume, the value of transactions through the site, was $22 million during that same quarter, the documents said. “Whoever controls the traffic and has the most transactions will win the upper hand,” he says.
While Airbnb declined to provide its occupancy rates, people close to the company say it floats between 8 percent and 12 percent in China, compared with an average city-by-city rate of 12 percent to 18 percent in the States. Zhuang says Tujia’s advantage lies partly in its wider range of services, such as helping property owners clean and manage their rentals. But he acknowledges that Airbnb is a strong competitor in several of China’s major cities, including Beijing.